Spring light along the shore

On Friday I stayed late to finish something and left work at half past seven, with the sun coming and going between clouds. I did not want to go home and cook, so I took the tram south instead, with the Bessa in my bag, loaded with Fomapan 100. It is my third roll this year. The HP5 I loaded at the start of the month ran out last weekend, which is quick for me. The first one took until the end of April.

Fomapan is my summer film. It is slow and cheap, a little grainy for a 100, and it curls like a wood shaving once the lab has cut it into strips. I only load it when the evenings are long enough for a slow film. Strictly speaking it is still spring, but I was impatient.

Kaivopuisto was quiet after the wet morning. A few dog walkers, and one couple on a blanket who must have planned it before they saw the forecast. I went down to the rocks by the water. When the sun came through, low in the west and a little behind me, the light came across the granite almost sideways and showed every crack in it. I used six or seven frames on rocks. They never look like much on the negatives. I keep trying.

The wind was the other thing. It was about ten degrees, and the wind came straight in off the sea, which is still cold in May. I had a jacket. I did not have a hat, which was a mistake.

Along Merisatama many of the boats were still up on their stands, and a man in overalls was sanding a hull by hand. I took one frame of him from the path. The rug-washing pier was empty. In Eira the sun was out again and came along the streets from the side, and the turrets and odd little windows stood out more than they do at noon. I took two frames of one doorway and walked on towards Hietalahti.

Past Eira the shore belongs to the shipyard and to building sites, so I went round through the streets behind the cranes and came back to the water by the cemetery at Hietaniemi. By then it was after half past nine. On the beach a man waded in up to his knees and came straight back out.

The sun went down a little after ten, behind broken cloud over the islands across the bay, and then nothing much happened. It still surprises me every year. It does not get dark. The sky goes pale, then a washed-out blue, and stays like that until it is morning again. By the end of the roll the meter wanted full aperture and 1/15 for anything that was not sky, and I was leaning on a lamp post to keep the camera still.

Most of the roll is probably rocks and pale sky. I took the tram home.